Attention parents of pre-teen children:
If your - child signed up for the popular social media application TikTok, before they turned 13 , their personal information may have been collected and shared in “widespread” violation of federal law.
Keller Rohrback is investigating TikTok’s actions for a potential class action lawsuit. Please contact us if you think TikTok may have collected and shared your child’s personal information.
A federal law called the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) prohibits companies from knowingly collecting, using, or disclosing personal information obtained from children younger than 13 without informed consent from a parent or guardian.
It is likely that millions of TikTok’s users in America are younger than 13, and there is evidence that TikTok violated federal law by illegally collecting personal and private information from these children and sharing it without permission, as the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) have alleged in a recent lawsuit against TikTok and its Chinese parent company ByteDance.
Although TikTok sets a minimum user age of 13, whistleblowers allege that the company has failed to uphold the minimum age standards and even ignored requests from concerned parents about their children’s security. If your pre-teen child signed up for TikTok, TikTok may have been exploiting their personal information for profit.
If your child signed up for TikTok before they were 13 years of age, and you are concerned about their online safety and TikTok’s alleged disregard for federal privacy protections, please contact us to learn more about your legal rights.
Why should I be concerned about TikTok’s alleged violations?
TikTok knows it should not be collecting personal information from children under the age of 13, but it has done so anyway. The reasons for this are concerning. Authorities allege that TikTok uses children’s personal data to track and profile them. Through this wrongful tracking and profiling, TikTok can deliver potentially harmful and inappropriate content. What is more, TikTok generates millions of dollars in revenue from advertising which it targets specifically at children.
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More About this investigation
The DOJ and the FTC allege that:
• TikTok has knowingly allowed children under 13 to create and use accounts without parental consent or knowledge.
• TikTok has collected extensive data from these children and failed to comply with parental requests to delete their children’s accounts and personal information.
• These actions violate the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and the associated COPPA Rule, which protect children’s online privacy and safety.
• TikTok’s conduct also breaches a 2019 court order stemming from a lawsuit over similar violations by its predecessor companies.
• As of 2024, TikTok has over 170 million users in the United States, many of whom are children and teenagers. In 2022, approximately two-thirds of U.S. teens reported using TikTok, with about 61% of those being 13- or 14-year-olds.
• TikTok has knowingly created accounts for children and collected data from those children without first notifying their parents and obtaining verifiable parental consent.
• TikTok has failed to honor parents’ requests to delete their children’s accounts and information.
• TikTok has failed to delete the accounts and information of users they know are children.
In the Media:
The New York Times: U.S. Sues TikTok Over Child Privacy Violations
The Washington Post: Justice Department Sues TikTok, alleging it broke child privacy law
Harvard Law Today: Candy crushed - Harvard Law digital privacy expert Leah Plunkett says that children’s data safety is just one of many problems with kids’ use of popular apps like TikTok
The Well News: Justice Dept. Sues TikTok Over Data Gathering on Children
About Keller Rohrback L.L.P.
With offices in Seattle, Denver, Missoula, New York, Oakland, Phoenix, Portland, and Santa Barbara, Keller Rohrback is a leader in representing consumers, employees, and companies who have had their information breached. We have a long track-record of success in this area, including serving as lead and co-lead counsel in nationwide class actions concerning data privacy such as the Facebook Consumer Privacy litigation arising out of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, the T-Mobile Data Breach litigation, and others.